Work Daze

This economic disaster does not play favorites. Pick any person, in any job category, and you will find fear, depression and uncertainty. Even the strongest people, with the best prospects, the most education, and the highest level of job skills live in fear of a sudden reversal that will put them permanently out to pasture.

When it comes to feeling scared and hopeless, this economy -- as they say in employment ads, back when there used to be employment ads – is an equal opportunity employer, male and female.

Or is it? According to personal branding expert Catherine Kaputa, female job searchers have a “feminine advantage: distinct, hardwired advantages over male counterparts and competitors.”

If you’re a woman, Kaputa says, all you have to do is leverage your natural advantages. What a man is supposed to do, Kaputa does not specify. [“Giving up” might be one strategy – putting down your beer, stripping off your football jersey, enjoying one last, loud burp, and walking into the sea.]

In her new book, “The Female Brand: Using the Female Mindset to Succeed in Business,” Kaputa presses her case that “women are naturally wired for success.” Using what her publicity person – a woman, naturally – describes as “the latest brain science,” the author “debunks old and misguided workplace myths – that women must think and act like a man to succeed.”

Unfortunately, in this economy, even thinking and acting like a man is no guarantee for success. That’s why I feel it is absolutely fair for men to use the “feminine advantage” to solve our job problems. For girlie-men like me, this should be relatively simple, but the way I see it, even a he-man like you could benefit from taking on few of these girlish traits.

For example:

1. Tune in Emotionally

Women are especially “intuitive and empathetic,” says Kaputa. It’s a condition she chalks up to a higher level of hormones, such as estrogen and oxytocin. By being more open to others’ feelings, her theory goes, women can form closer bonds to “build strong and healthy work relationships.”

Accepting for a moment that a “healthy work relationship” actually exists, this lack of hormones is a difficult hurdle for mankind. You could ask for extra estrogen on your double cheeseburger, or add an oxytocin chaser to your boilermaker, but the harsh truth is that, in the game of biology, you have to play with the hormones you were dealt. That leaves guys with testosterone, a hormone more connected with caveman violence than with intuition or empathy.

However, now that you know you are competing with a bunch of sensitive, highly hormonal women, you could make an effort. It’s a drag, but try asking your managers to share their feelings – right before you pummel them.

2. Create an attractive package

Kaputa rightly reports that attractive people “are viewed as being smarter and more competent,” but I do believe she errs in suggesting that women have “naturally better instincts, as well as more ‘visual aids’ to work with than men do.” You don’t have to be female to “accentuate your best features,” as you prove every day with a hairpiece that says to management that you are an out-of-the-box thinker. How else could they explain a man wears a squirrel on his head? And don’t be afraid to develop your natural gift for accessorizing. Remember – a Kegerator goes with everything, especially if it comes from Gucci.

3. Be likeable

Kaputa believes that women have a gift for “compassion, empathy and intuition,” which translates into a higher level of likeability, “a key asset in the workplace.” This is clearly wrong. How many hours have you spent watching “The Hills?” Sure, the girls are compassionate, but you don’t really like them, except for Audrina, of course.

Besides, who says likeability is an important element to success? Look at your management team. Is there one iota of likeableness in the entire bunch?

Here is where men have a real advantage. You can stay the uncompassionate, unempathetic, unintuitive jerk you really are, but hide all your natural unlikability behind an image of feminine friendliness and caring and sharing. That way, when you strike, no one will expect it!

Sure, it’s a lot of work to be a girlie-man, but if the price of succeeding in this rotten economy is a touch of blusher and a pair of Manolo Blahniks, I say, pay it.

Are you a people person? Do you love people? Or do you hate people who love people? If so, slide right on over. You’re my kind of people.

We have to thank Jonathan Littman and Marc Hershon for helping us see that people who hate people are, indeed, the luckiest people in the world. These two gentlemen, who I’ve never met, but who I am totally willing to hate on general principles, are the authors of a new business book called “I Hate People!” Their thesis – being a hater can give you a significant business advantage.

It’s true! According to their book’s subtitle, it is only by cultivating your natural ability to hate that you will be able to “Kick Loose from the Overbearing and Underhanded Jerks at Work and Get What You Want Out of Your Job.”

Of course, there’s nothing new about hating your job. What Littman & Hershon have accomplished is to provide us with guidelines for focusing our hate. If you hate to waste your hate, you will love their list of the ten most hateful individuals one finds at work.
Like “The Stop Sign,” a shortsighted person who only knows how to say, “No” even when presented with an excellent idea, like the Kodak executive who nixed the idea of producing a digital camera, or the Decca Records honcho who refused to sign the Beatles, or your own management, who rejected your inspired idea of boosting profits by raising earthworms in your desk drawers.

The authors also hate “Sheeple,” workplace zombies who “think alike, resist alike,” and are “comfortable with the herd mentality.” Personally, I think you should love the vast herds of Sheeple grazing on the workplace landscape. Compared to them, even a cream puff like you looks like a predator.

Unfortunately, it is not enough to simply hate everyone. Once you’ve categorized and pulverized all your co-workers, you must then emerge from your crystallis of hate as the workplace butterfly Littman & Hershon call a “Soloist.” No more group think for you. “The Soloist excels when he or she gets to perform alone, taking the Ensemble to new heights while demonstrating skills and talents that inspire.”

The Soloist, employing “Solocrafting,” doesn’t slow down for “Stop Signs,” and runs roughshod through the “Sheeple” to reach their goal. “A rebel without being a revolutionary,” the Soloist is the modern, workplace version of the classic American hero who shoots first and asks questions later.

Needless to say, the Soloist has absolutely no friends, and is hated by everyone in the company. If this sounds like your boss, you can see why Solocrafting works. On the other hand, if this also sounds like the homeless guy living in an empty refrigerator box under a freeway overpass, you can see why there are some risks involved. My advice is that it’s perfectly fine to hate everyone, but at the same time, make sure that everyone loves you. That way, if you end up standing before the firing squad, someone may lend you a blindfold.

Perhaps my favorite part of “I Hate People” comes at the end of the book, when the authors suggest that a Soloist’s success at work depends on having your own “Personal Cave.” This private space is a “creative cocoon that allows you to do all those things best done without interruption,” like playing Doom or napping!

The authors do not limit the location of your Personal Cave to your assigned cubical, but suggest that when the negative energy of group space starts to get the best of you, take the time to “dig yourself in” at the nearest Starbucks, or the local library. There is much to be said for getting out of the box if you want to produce out of the box thinking, but the authors do neglect to take into consideration the negative effect of being AWOL for hours of time, despite the beautiful solo symphonies emanating from your personal Fortress of Solitude.

That’s why I say – don’t leave the work place. Instead, go ahead and turn your Personal Cube in your Personal Cave. Cover your carpet with peat moss. Block out distracting sunlight by painting all the windows on your floor with black paint. Cover your cube with a tree branches, and light a fire in the file cabinet. It may get a little cold, dark and smoky in there, but you’ll love it, and so will the earthworms.

You’ve got a secret. You’re looking for a new job. You desperately want out of your present position, but you don’t want your bosses to know. They’re paranoid, vindictive, and just plain nasty. They don’t like your work, but they’ll keep you on as long as they think you are loyal. This isn’t a testament to their good characters. It just takes too long to break the spirit of a new employee.

So how do you actively hunt for a new job without your old job noticing? You follow the rules laid down by Caroline M.L. Potter, a writer with Yahoo! HotJobs. Ms. Potter does not mince words when she limns the perilous state in which stealth job-hunters find themselves: “Your current employer may be in dire straits, or you may simply be seeking new challenges,” she writes, “but in a challenging economy, there are a lot of eager professionals for any position – including your present one. And because most employment is at-will, you may be fired for looking for a new job.”

[You also may be fired for failing to fall to your knees when your supervisor walks past your cubicle, but that’s another story.]

For advice on how to walk the tightrope between broadcasting and stifling your job search, Ms. Potter turns to online networking expert, Liz Ryan.

“Do not use Linkedin, Facebook or Twitter to indicate that you’re job hunting,” counsels Ryan. The same prohibition goes for mass emails. “Someone could reach out, inadvertently, to someone connected to your boss and blow your cover.”

No doubt, this is good advice, but it is frustrating. Since you already spend 90% of your time at work on Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter, it would be very easy to slip in a subtle reference to your dissatisfaction. In a Tweet, for example, you could use your 140 characters to paint a word picture of your current employer, like “LMFAO, you can not believe what a stupid, ignorant, jerk my boss is,” and still have 83 characters left to discuss the most recent episode of Gossip Girl.

If you can’t make a digital call for help, networking expert Ryan suggests using your network. “Make sure everyone understands what you do and what kind of opportunities you’re pursuing.”

Good plan. You don’t want your network passing on leads on jobs that are not appropriate, like employment in a place where you’d actually have to work.

“Enroll your job search army,” Ryan goes on. “Meet with them. Talk with them. Ask about their lives. Find out how you can help them. This will get them thinking about you in an up-to-date way.”

This advice is not so good. If you have to expend energy actually caring about your friends and co-workers, you might as well keep the job you have. It’s much easier. I’m also unenthusiastic about getting your network to think of you in an “up-to-date way.” You’ve always been a dissatisfied, grumpy complainer. Why change now?

Consultant Ryan does have one worthwhile idea – if you need to grow your network beyond the delivery guy from Dominos and the daytime bartender at the Kit Kat Klub, do it while you’re still employed. “Employed job seekers have a huge advantage over unemployed people,” says Ryan and she is so right. You know you’re always out-of-time when it comes to seeing your out-of-work friends. They’re depressing. Needy. And who knows – unemployment can be contagious!

But don’t drop your friends completely. “If you let a connection lapse,” cautions Amy Ryan, “you may encounter apathy when you ask for help.” Duh. You’ve been encountering apathy from your associates for years now. Their lack of interest in listening to your tales of woe is totally inexplicable. That’s why it does make sense to use your last few moments of employment to strengthen ties and, most importantly, to borrow lots and lots of money. Let’s see them try to collect when you file for Chapter 11!

Another way to leverage your evil networking empire is with your company’s vendors. Insist on a job or, at least, a recommendation before you award a contract.

You might take a page from The Godfather, who rasps to one his suppliers, a mortician, “if, by chance, an honest man like yourself should make enemies . . . then they would become my enemies. And then they would fear you.''

It worked for Don Corleone, and hey, those Mafia guys never have trouble finding work.

Remember the good old days when your company would match your 401(k) contribution – up to 3,4,5, or 6 %? The reason for this beneficence was to encourage employees to save for their own retirement. It was a good idea, since management sure didn’t give a hoot.

Well, kiddies, the world has changed since those ancient times – maybe 6 months ago. Now, if there’s a percentage in your paycheck it doesn’t represent a perk. The way the math works today is that companies are asking employees to take a pay cut – 3,4,5, or 6%. The only match involved is the match you use to set fire your retirement plans. As for that 401(k), it just might pay for bus fare to your 1-bedroom condo at Boca del Vista, assuming it hasn’t been foreclosed, auctioned off, and converted into a kennel.

The excuse companies give when asking their employees to whack a percentage off their salaries is truly insidious. You have to lose a little so your co-workers don’t lose everything. Management could fire 100% of 6% of the staff, or 100% of the staff could take a 6% pay cut, thus generating sufficient savings to keep the teenier-tinier paychecks flowing.

Presented this way, how can you say, “No way!”? Could you ever live with yourself if even one of the generous and always helpful IT nerds lost their job because of your need for a 60” plasma TV with Sensurround Sound? And how could you sleep at night – or, more importantly, in the afternoon – knowing that your selfish desire to buy groceries for your family resulted in the decimation of your crackerjack HR department – the empathetic employees who organize those wonderfully informative “sensitivity workshops” that take up endless afternoons and week-ends, teaching you the importance of being sensitive to the emotional needs of the HR department.

Not every company is utilizing the concept of the communal pay cut to save jobs. Another popular sign of the bad times is the forced leave of absence – a mandatory “vacation without pay” that could last a day, a week, or even a month in which you do not work, do not pass go, and do not collect a paycheck.

Frankly, in your case, this cost-cutting move holds a lot more risk that an across-the-board salary reduction. No one will know that you’re living on dented cans and government cheese, but once management sees how well the business runs without your presence, it will only be a matter of not-much-time before your temporary time off becomes permanent.

But let’s not indulge in a pity-party. Here are two productive, pro-active responses you can make to keep your head – and your paycheck – while others are losing theirs.

1. Prove your worth by countering a reduction in pay with an equal reduction in productivity.

As little work as you current do, you could do less. Yes, it will take a lot of ingenuity and effort to work less, but it’s worth it to prove just how essential you really are. So, if it’s your policy to never return phone calls, it’s time to step up your game and stop answering the phone altogether. [This technique is especially effective if you have a job in customer service.]

If you routinely come in late, come in later. If you always leave early, leave earlier. Trust me – if business is bad, this technique will make it badder, proving to management that they can’t monkey with your fundamental right to get 100% of pay for 1% of effort.

1. Use mandatory furloughs to demonstrate your resourcefulness.

Don’t go meekly into vacation mode when forced to stay out of work. If you want to spend hours Twittering with your Facebook friends, do it in the appropriate location – at your desk. Instead of giving in to leisure, spend your forced furlough constructively. Set up a tent in the company parking lot and move in with your family. Think how creative you will appear to management as you and the kids live off the land, skinning squirrels, and barbecuing the lug nuts off the boss’s Jaguar.

Yes, with a little ingenuity you can make management understand that the place for a seriously deranged and totally lazy employee like yourself is in your cubical. And if a few HR dorks or IT dinks have to lose their jobs, so be it. Trust me – there are plenty of Jaguar lug nuts to go around.

If you’re the type of negative person who is positive only bad things can happen at work, here’s the confirmation you’ve been expecting. No longer will you have to fear the topless shenanigans of HR drones gone wild, nor worry that IT nerds will T.P. your cubical because you don’t regularly floss between your laptop keys.

No, friends, the greatest risk to your health and happiness at work is lurking silently in the cozy confines of the company coffee room, masquerading as a refuge for egg salad sandwiches and broccoli-berry Snapple – that demonic, deadly, so-close-to detonation time bomb – the office mini-fridge.

Lest you think I’m off my medications (again,) consider this news article from “The Mercury News” of San Jose, California: “Stench from rotten refrigerator sickens 28; San Jose office evacuated.”

The disaster struck on May 12 at an AT&T call center in North San Jose. When the dust had settled, and the stink had dispersed, 50 firefighters and 18 emergency vehicles had raced to the scene; 325 AT&T employees had been evacuated; and seven people were in ambulances on the way to the hospital. The lucky seven “were vomiting or complaining of nausea.”

For all of us who work in a communal environment, the lurking horror that is the office refrigerator is well known. The problem is not just that people fill the thing with noxious food choices, like liverwurst and onions and anchovy paste and Gorgonzola cheese. That’s just your sandwich. The real trouble starts when people decide to abandon the lunch they brought with them, leaving it to ripen, rot and fester as the days, the weeks and months go on.

[Though no one food group has been indicted, you can almost visualize a television special on refrigerator crime that would combine Law & Order with The Food Network. I can even hear the introduction: “In the culinary justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important chefs: the Rachel Ray, who investigates office refrigerator stench, and Emeril Lagasse, who prosciuttos the offenders. These are their stories.” ]

Of course, we just can’t blame a few thoughtless employees. According to the news report, it was a thoughtful employee who “decided to remove the mess to a conference room and scour the fridge with a cleaning fluid similar to 409 or Lysol.” Personally, I’m surprised that the decaying foods lasted long enough in the conference room to be a problem. With a workplace full of scavengers and mooches, anything even vaguely resembling food is usually snatched up in seconds.

Compounding this science experiment gone wrong, “another employee sprayed a different chemical cleaner into the air, assuming it would temper the scent.”

“And that,” according Captain Barry Stallard of the San Jose Fire Department, “ was when the party started.”

I suppose I could conclude this sermonette by inviting you to join me in pledging to clean out the office refrigerator at least once a decade, but it strikes me that the real story here is how you could turn a Kenmore liability into an Amana asset. For example, why not get some intimidation points by packing your lunch in one of those signature blue bags from Tiffany? Or wave your gourmet flag with a doggy bag from Olive Garden.

If you can’t impress with the container that carries your lunch, leverage the ingredients. Bring in ramekins of foie gras and Scottish salmon to suggest that you’re on the fast track, salarywise. Bring kimchee and natto to show that you are open to a posting in Asia, or, if you’d rather go to Norway, stuff your Elvis lunch box with reindeer jerky before leaving it to metastasize in the company of your co-workers’ tuna fish. Or demonstrate your commitment to fitness by stocking the frig with your steroids, or prove that you are a party person by filling the ice trays with guacamole.

If you should be sufficiently unfortunate to have a health nut for your manager, a container of alfalfa sprouts should be your contribution to the crowded refrigerator. Explain that it goes really well with the organic mushrooms you’re growing in your bottom desk drawer.

Yes, it takes a little work and preparation, but by adjusting your daily deposit in the office refrigerator you can boost your career to a point where you can afford to eat lunch out. And if all else fails, you can always grab a gallon or two of Lysol and evacuate the building.

Oh, reader – the sacrifices I make for thee. Like the way I put my hand on the sacred wireless mouse and clicked on a check box, swearing that I “would like to receive special offers and promotions from Dale Carnegie Training.”

Yes, reader, I have subjected myself to a lifetime of uplifting spam simply for the sake of downloading a free copy of Dale Carnegie’s Golden Book, “a practical no nonsense step-by-step guide that will improve your ability to communicate with others and manage co-workers, your boss and other business relationships.”

Now that I have my hot little hands on the volume in question, I can not only use my newfound power to cloud the minds of managers and co-workers, but share these arcane secrets with you. So that you, too, can bend bosses to your will, and transform colleagues into mindless slaves, dedicated to obeying your slightest whim.

[No need to thank me. Just deposit a few Benjamins into my Cayman Islands account when your supervisor brings you a latte in the morning, and asks if there’s anything else she can do for you, like rush back to the coffee cart for a buttered scone.]

Unfortunately, the actual content of The Golden Book is somewhat different than the collection of workplace spells and incantations I had expected. Perhaps I am too cynical, but the first golden secret is a suggestion that you “become a friendlier person.”

According to Carnegie you become friendlier by becoming “genuinely interested in other people;” by being a “good listener;” and by making “the other person feel important,” a transformation that you must accomplish “sincerely.”

I suppose this all makes sense and I know you’d be perfectly willing to do it, just as long as you actually didn’t have to listen to the trivial blather your co-workers spew all day long. And I do mean that sincerely.

Listening to Anthrax on your iPod while you pretend to be sincere would be one relatively painless way to perform your listening duties, but it might be noticed, even by your dimwitted colleagues. I suggest you purchase a used hearing aid on eBay and start wearing it to work. You don’t need to turn it on. Your naturally baffled expression will sell the story, especially if you randomly request, “Could you please speak louder. It’s really interesting, sincerely”

The Golden Book contains thirty principles from the seminal “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” and an equal number from “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.” This suggests to me that winning friends and influencing people may not be all that easy, because if you could really do it, why would you be worrying?

If you really do wish to start living, and I’m not convinced it’s all that much better than doing what you are doing now – barely existing in a fetal position while awaiting the next blow of fate – one of the “fundamental principles” authored by Carnegie is to anticipate and prepare for disaster by asking yourself “What is the worst than can possibly happen?”

For example, if you are worried about surviving a weekend HR training session on team building, convince yourself that the real purpose of the off-site is to put you in a situation where your bad attitude will get you fired. You certainly won’t be able to find another cushy position like the one you have now, so you will likely go through your savings and lose your house, and your spouse certainly won’t stand by a loser like you, so you’ll end up alone, living on the streets, eating from dumpsters, catching a rare disease and dying a horrible, painful, unheralded death.

Presto-chango – you’re no longer worried about the HR retreat, and can attend with a positive, can-do attitude. Gee, this Dale dude really knows his stuff.

I hope that you have gained as much from this gloss of the Carnegie method as I have, but just in case you think this entire column has been waste of your precious time, I refer you to “The Golden Book” for one more tidbit of Carnegie wisdom about which I have no doubts – “expect ingratitude.” This is from a section titled “Cultivate a Mental Attitude that Will Bring You Peace and Happiness.” And it’s true! If your attempts at manipulating your co-workers causes pain and makes trouble, remember that there’s nothing that can bring you more peace and happiness than making a beloved colleague miserable.

Oh, the sacrifices that must be made when you lose your job. You may have to give up your company-leased Lexus, or sell the vacation house in Belize that you have been writing off as a branch office. Without a job or an expense account, you may have to downgrade from a suite at the Ritz-Carleton to something more modest, like an empty refrigerator box under the freeway.

Go without a job long enough, and the sacrifices get even more painful. You may have to give up private school and send your kid for home schooling, assuming you can find a home that will take him. Your country club membership will go immediately, though you may be able to get a job as a caddy. You also won’t be able to keep up your gym membership and could revert back to your natural flabby state, but don’t sweat it. There’s no better diet plan than being unable to buy food.

No matter what indigent indignities await you in your new state of unemployment, rest assured that there is one life essential that you will never give up. It’s a drive that is stronger than hunger, or sex, or even the innate, genetic need to watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

You can fire me, you can humble me, but believe me – you will never take away my Botox.

It’s true! According to an article in “The Wall Street Journal” by Rhonda L. Rundle “vanity appears to be trumping frugality in a looks-conscious society.”

Ms. Rundle goes on: “Despite the dismal economic climate, most women – and men – who undergo appearance-enhancing treatments such as Botox injections are spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year to maintain the regimen.”

Though you and I are natural beauties whose striking good looks require no artificial enhancements, I do understand the decision to keep the Botox flowing. The need to look youthful is a critical career skill in a highly competitive job market. In the face of an economic melt-down, you don’t want your face to melt-down, too. Or, as Kathleen Hudson, a 57-year old marketing consultant puts it, “If you’re in the business world and you want to be competitive with the younger people, you need to stay on top of your game.”

[Let me pause here for those readers who do not understand what miracles can be wrought by a substance like Botox or Juvéderm or Restylane. Delivered by injection into a repository of wrinkles, the magic elixir fills, lifts and smoothes. If you’ve ever restored a 1956 Chevy, you might think of it as Bondo for your face. ]

Though there are some drawbacks to injecting facial putty, like the inability to smile or show any emotion, like horror when you get the doctor’s bill. Still, even the most negative side effects can become positives in the workplace. Consider the advantage of not being able to smile. If we’re going to reward the blunders of a chucklehead as CEO with a bushel of taxpayer cash, we want him to look serious. In the same spirit, a manager who shows emotion can be seen as weak, loopy or female. Getting a face freeze is definitely a plus in any workplace situation, especially when confronted with the thousands of employees you will have to lay off.

Of course, Botox treatments can be expensive. Even with special, two-for-one offers, the average cost per visit can range from $500 to $2000 dollars. No wonder the children of marginally employed and unemployed workers are forced to give up visits to the pediatrician to finance Mommy and Daddy’s trips to the plastic surgeon. Until Wal-Mart gets into the game, we all will have to make sacrifices.

On the other hand, one can look at serial Botoxers as thrifty shoppers. As the Journal article points out, “Patients like the idea that with aesthetic treatments they can pay as they go,” says Dr. Malcolm Z. Roth, a New York City plastic surgeon. Botoxing is also a whole lot cheaper than a facelift to make you look young, or a tummy tuck to make you look thin.

Personally, I think if you truly care about your appearance, you really don’t want to skimp. Get that face lift! Charge that eye job! Hey, it cost me a fortune for a plastic surgeon to make me look smart by crafting these Spock ears, but on me, I think they look good.

Could they make it any harder? These days, the job market is so competitive, you not only need experience, and skills, and a positive attitude, you also must have a cover letter.

That’s right! A made-up resume and bogus references are no longer sufficient. According to “The New York Times’” Career Couch columnist, Phyllis Korkki, a successful job applicant will also provide a cover letter.

Even if you are applying by email? Yes! “Cover letters are still necessary,” writes Ms. Korkki, “and in a competitive market they can give you a serious edge if they are written and presented effectively.”

Katy Piotrowski, a career counselor, is anxious to pile on. “Cover letters are a graceful way to introduce yourself, to convey your personality and to impress a hiring manager with your experience and your writing skills.”

This all may be true, though in your case, do remember that the success of any job search depends on covering up your personality.

One of the first questions to resolve is how to address the recipient you are so anxious to impress. This can be a problem when answering a blind ad, since you may not create the right tone of personal warmth by beginning your cover letter, “Dear Post Office Box 113A.” The traditional “Dear Sir or Madam” certainly won’t work in these gender-confused times, though you would demonstrate your open mind by using “Dear Sir or Madam or Transgender Individual in the Process of Going from Sir to Madam or Madam to Sir or any combination thereof.”

Piotrowski does not endorse cover letters that start with no salutation, and she unequivocally does not consider “Hey there” as a strong start. Personally, I prefer a more granular approach. If you are applying for a job in the financial services industry, you might start your cover letter with “Dear Greedy Bloated Immoral Doofus,” while an application to a US automobile company could use a salutation, a simple “Dear Loser.”

Of course, you’ll never go wrong with a spirited “Hey Dude.”

According to Debra Wheatman, a career expert at Vault, a jobs web site, your cover letter should be short – no more than three or four paragraphs. The subject for that critical first paragraph, adds Wendy S. Enelow, author of “Cover Letter Magic,” is to explain why you are writing. [Though I haven’t read “Cover Letter Magic” – I’m waiting for the movie – I think we can safely assume that the purpose of the second paragraph is to explain why you wrote the first paragraph.]

Use the first paragraph to explain how you came upon the job opening – you saw a want ad in the newspaper you use as a blanket when sleeping in your favorite alley, or you found a business card in the wallet you pick-pocketed on a cross-town bus. You should also use this introductory paragraph to demonstrate that you have done your homework. Don’t be afraid to show off. Anybody with a laptop can learn the company’s manufacturing and marketing strengths, but you show real initiative when you also reveal that the name of the downtown hotel the hiring manager uses to carry on their illicit affair with the boss’s schnauzer.

Use the middle paragraphs, Enelow continues, to “convey a clear story about your career, and highlight past accomplishments. This can either be done as a narrative or in bullet points.” In your case, I would suggest the narrative approach, since the bullet format may prove a little skimpy:

• I was born.
• I was hired.
• I was fired.
• I was fired again.
• I quit.
• Actually, I was fired.
• I really could use an egg-salad sandwich.

“Finish up your letter by indicating that you will follow up in the future,” writes reporter Korkki, “and make good on that promise.” I suggest you either use the traditional farewell verbiage, “I’ll never forget you, you and all the others like you, who have made my life a living hell,” or the more personal, “I’ll get even with you for this. Believe me, you haven’t heard the last of [your name here.]”

A final warning is to not provide too much information. “Hiring managers are looking for way to exclude you,” says cover-letter maven Enelow. “Do not give them that ammunition.” I suggest you don’t write a cover letter, or send a resume, or even answer the ad. Being a depressed, bitter, unemployed individual is something you do really well. Why wreck it?

If you think life at your workplace is miserable, here’s a concept that will fill you with dread. Imagine that instead of your lovely office, where management has slaved to make sure every amenity has been provided for you, and where every aspect of décor has been designed for your personal delight, you are forced to work in a truly unsavory and depressing environment – your home.

And it gets worse. Instead of your ever-cheery, well-informed, and always-lovable officemates, the person with whom you spend every working hour is your spouse. That’s right, the same person whose grouchy behavior motivates you to leave for work every morning, now stays with you all day, messing up your life as well as your bathroom.

This truly revolting situation – two people who love each other forced to work and live together 24/7 – is one of the little-known areas of devastation caused by our current economic tsunami. The way it usually goes down, according to an article by Regan McMahon, a reporter for “The San Francisco Chronicle,” is that one-half of a couple loses their job and is forced to stay in the nest with their work-from-home partner. It’s difficult for the person who lost their job, but it’s even worse for the person who loses their sanctuary.

“It’s like suddenly being told you have to share your cubicle with someone,” says Mary Orfali, an IBM database manager whose work-at-home life was shattered by the arrival of her laid-off spouse. “He’d be trying to get work and talking really loud on the phone. I finally suggested he take his laptop and work in the bedroom downstairs. It was like another blow to his ego, after he’d already had the blow of being laid off.”

We can leave the resolution of the geo-domestic battlefield that is the home of the Orfalis to Dr. Phil, but let us not be too quick to judge. Few of us are immune to the introduction of a snake in the grass in our own personal Garden of Eden. According to therapist Cris Walker Roskelley, “the work-at-home spouse has developed a routine, one that the unemployed spouse usually throws off by being home.”

You can see the problem. Your work-at-home routine demands a rigorous, highly-choreographed schedule, calling for you to go back to bed the moment your spouse leaves for work, and not getting up until it’s time for “America’s Next Top Model.” The last thing you need is some charged-up, work-obsessed partner pounding the computer keys, looking for a job.

On the positive side, reporter McMahon points out that the newly unemployed half of the relationship can “help out with household chores and child care.” While this does sound like cruel and unusual treatment for a battered and shattered ex-employee, the years we’ve all spent satisfying the whims of baby bosses makes the prospect of wrangling a colicky kid sound like a vacation with pay.

Of course, the real strain that occurs when both partners are stuck home, not alone, is from the expanded opportunities for blame and vituperation. Therapist Sheila Rubin has seen couples turn on one another. “Grumbled phrases slip out, such as, ‘Maybe you weren’t working hard enough, so you got laid off’ or ‘You should have changed jobs years ago.’”

Since you probably won’t be able to afford therapy on one salary, let me suggest that contentious couples learn to co-exist in peace and harmony. Realize that none of us are in control of our working lives, and that bad jobs happen to good people. As part of the healing process, you should use your next unemployment check to buy two Super Soakers and turn your house from a den of grumbled innuendos into a real battlefield. The loser sleeps in the garage.

Reporter McMahon suggests that the work-at-home partner “be flexible. If you usually hold your conference calls in the kitchen, talk with your spouse about whether this would be inconvenient and find a solution that works for both of you.” Perhaps, when you’re not using the kitchen for work, she or he can use it to recreate the scene in the office coffee room, bringing in the office hotties to recreate a workplace session of gossiping and flirting over the coffee urn.

Remember – the coping skills you learn in this brief period of co-existence will come in handy on the happy day when you both retire, and have to live together 24/7 – for forever.

It’s tough enough getting a job interview in this nasty economy. If you’re lucky enough to nab a spot on a hiring manager’s DayTimer®. You don’t want to ruin your chances by asking the wrong questions, right?

According to Liz Ryan, who apparently did well enough at her interview for Yahoo ® Hotjobs® to nab a writing gig, has now come up with the “Ten Questions Never to Ask in Job Interviews.” It’s a good topic, but I’m afraid Ms. Ryan comes to some rather bogus conclusions, including the assumption that you actually want the job.

Granted you may be tired of living on government cheese, there really is no reason to accept a position that will make you miserable, and keep you from watching the Tyra Banks Show.

See if you don’t agree – don’t ask the questions you’re not supposed to ask, and you could end up with a fate worse than unemployment; you could get actually get a job!

Take Non-question #1 – “What does your company do?” Ryan suggests that in the Internet Era, applicants should “show up for a job interview knowing what the employer does, who its competitors are and which of its accomplishments (or challenges) have made the news lately.”

But face facts – doing research takes effort, and if you really wanted to work, you’d probably still have your last job. Moreover, learning what your new employer does before you start takes all the surprise out of your first day on the job! Imagine the fun and pride when you show up for work to learn that you’re an apprentice embalmer, well on your way to a profitable career in small animal taxidermy.

Questions #2, “Are you going to do a background check?” is a no-no because it can give the potential employer the wrong impression about you. To me, this question should be the first few words out of your mouth, right after “Do you have a bathroom?” “Is this going to take a long time?” and the classic, “Do you validate?”

For Ryan, Question #2 makes you “look like a person with something to hide.” Well, you do have to something to hide – specifically, your past performance at all your previous positions. Asking about a background check makes the interviewer think that your biggest negatives lie in an area outside of your workplace skills. That’s why I say – ask away, and, just to be sure, add “And does your background check include misdemeanors as well as felonies?”

In the same vein, you definitely want to ask #8, “Is my [medical condition] covered under your insurance?” and hope that the answer is no. Unless you want to spend twelve hours a day working, the last thing you need is for some hotshot Dr. House curing your narcolepsy, your panic attacks and your kleptomania.

Ryan suggests that Question #9, “Do you do a drug test?” may be interpreted as “I’d fail a drug test.” This is true, but she misses an important point – drug-testing procedures are costly, and your prospective employer may appreciate the fact that you could save them this expense. That’s why I suggest that along with your resume, you bring your bong. I’m not promoting drug use, but encouraging the hiring manager to take a few hits may make the interview go a lot smoother.

Non-Question #3, “When will I be eligible for a raise?” is considered risky because it suggests that you are not satisfied with your starting salary, even before you start. I think it’s OK because it suggests you will be an aggressive over-achiever. Just be sure to follow it up with a few more questions, like “Now?” and “How about now?” and “Is now too soon?”

“Questions #4 and #5, “Do you have any other jobs available?” and “How soon can I transfer to another position?” doom you to a speedy rejection, writes Ryan, because “almost every employer will want to keep you in your seat for at least one year before approving an internal transfer, so a job-search bait-and-switch probably won’t work out the way you hoped.”

I disagree. If you actually want the job, playing “hard to get” by demonstrating your total lack of interest in the position is catnip to hiring managers, especially HR types who are so downtrodden and unhappy that they’ll leap at the opportunity to hire you.

Misery loves company, they say, but take it from me – companies also love misery.